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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23227306">Better than This</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/raininshadows/pseuds/raininshadows'>raininshadows</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 12:01:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,786</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23227306</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/raininshadows/pseuds/raininshadows</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Lysithea is fifteen years old, and she does not have a crush on Princess Edelgard.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Edelgard von Hresvelg/Lysithea von Ordelia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>97</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Worldbuilding Exchange 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Better than This</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serie11/gifts">Serie11</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lysithea is fifteen, and she does not have a crush. </p><p>She does not have time to have a crush on someone. Especially not, of all people, the Imperial Princess. She has a lot of things she needs to do and at most a decade to do them in. Most prominently, she will find the people who did this to her, and she will kill them like they killed her siblings. </p><p>She sees Edelgard’s hair, bleach-white like hers, and she wonders if perhaps she wasn’t the only one. She knows that Edelgard was one of several siblings, and that she is now the only one alive. She sees Edelgard’s quiet plans; there’s no telling what they are, but Edelgard has her own ideas for after she becomes the Adrestian Emperor, and sometimes Lysithea imagines that Edelgard could be her ally in the fight against the bastards that gave Lysithea a second Crest and a death sentence. (She wonders, too, what those arms that swing an axe so well would feel like wrapped around her. But that’s the sort of thing she keeps to herself, alone in her dorm room when she can’t sleep.) </p><p>She joins the Black Eagles. It’s a bit to make things easier with Linhardt, who she mostly can’t stand but who is probably her most promising tack on doing something about her Crest situation, and a bit because Professor Byleth is the most compelling and charismatic person she’s ever met, and a bit to be around Edelgard. </p><p>Lysithea turns sixteen, and Edelgard, who went somewhere with Professor Byleth a few weeks ago and has flatly refused to tell anyone where or why, shows up at her room late that night carrying something. They had a little party earlier that day, with the Eagles and the Deer, and Edelgard was there. Edelgard gave her a book of advanced mathematics, which is currently sitting on Lysithea’s desk, and wished her a good year.</p><p>“May I come in?” Edelgard says, holding a large object wrapped in dark fabric, and Lysithea nods before it occurs to her to wonder why the Imperial Princess wants into her room at nearly midnight. </p><p>It also does not occur to her in time that there’s only one chair. She covers up for that by pulling it out and sort of shoving it in Edelgard’s direction. Edelgard turns it so she can face Lysithea more easily and sits, and Lysithea sits down on her bed. </p><p>“There was… something else I wanted to give you,” Edelgard says, and starts pulling the fabric off the thing she brought along. “Not in front of the others.” </p><p>Lysithea’s mind throws out a variety of possibilities for what it might be, all of which she immediately rejects as absurd. The item Edelgard reveals is, instead, a shield. </p><p>Her confusion must show, because Edelgard holds it up and indicates the tiny letters etched into the sides. “It’s designed to repel magic as well as physical attacks. I thought you might find it useful,” Edelgard explains. She smiles, bright and warm and genuine. “But hopefully not necessary. Still, you might want to bring it along tomorrow. You never know what might happen.”</p><p>There is a lot of ominous subtext packed into those few sentences, and Lysithea is pretty sure she doesn’t have time to deconstruct them. Instead, she takes the shield from Edelgard and nods. “Thank you.” </p><p>Edelgard leans in, closer to her. They could kiss. They could kiss right now. “You’re an important member of this class, Lysithea,” she says, but Lysithea’s barely hearing anyting Edelgard says over the sound of the blood in her ears. “I care about you, and I don’t want you to get hurt unnecessarily.” </p><p>“Thank you,” Lysithea repeats, smiling. “Princess Edelgard.”</p><p>Edelgard moves back and stands up. The moment is broken. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” she says. “And Lysithea… happy birthday.”</p><p>It is the day after Lysithea turns sixteen, and Edelgard has just declared war on the Church. She doesn’t know what to do, but she’s following Edelgard and Professor Byleth. She has, for once, no better ideas. </p><p>Lysithea is twenty years old when things start improving. </p><p>Professor Byleth comes back, and says they’d been asleep for the last five years. Nobody is sure how that can be, but nobody was sure how they could have absorbed the power of the progenitor goddess either. Edelgard, who had been growing quieter and more distant with every passing day, is back to life. </p><p>Lysithea’s crush, which had been dampened beneath the weight of the struggle for their lives, is back in action. </p><p>Edelgard asks Lysithea into her room, and of course Lysithea says yes. </p><p>“Would you like some tea?” Edelgard offers. </p><p>“Of course,” Lysithea says, and then “Ooh, this is my favorite!” </p><p>Edelgard smiles. “Good. I was hoping I’d gotten it right.” Then she drops to dead seriousness. “We need to talk about something.” </p><p>Lysithea is braced for something horrible, and in a way, it’s what she gets. “You have two Crests, don’t you?” Edelgard asks. “Like me.”</p><p>She’s pretty sure Edelgard’s suspected for a while. But now that Professor Byleth is commanding them in battle again, she’s been having her Crests activate more frequently. Most of the others probably don’t know, but Edelgard is always watching her Black Eagle Strike Force. “Yes,” Lysithea says. “I do.”</p><p>“And you didn’t want the second one, did you?” Edelgard says. “The ones from the dark forced it on you.”</p><p>Lysithea nods.</p><p>“That’s what this is about,” Edelgard says. “The war. All of it. We’re going to take them down. And Lysithea, I need your help. They have something like magic, but far beyond what we do. I need you to learn about it so that we can disable it when the time comes.”</p><p>“Of course,” Lysithea says. </p><p>She’s thrown headlong into a world of books that make the advanced math book Edelgard gave her for her sixteenth birthday look like child’s play. These books largely come from Morfis or Almyra, some of them have to be translated before she can work on them, and they’re titled things such as <i>An Introduction to Thermodynamics</i> and <i>Discrete Mathematics for Beginners</i>. Hubert, who has apparently been recruited for the same task, begins to spend long hours with her trying to understand what these books are describing. </p><p>All the time, they watch their allies — the Agarthans, as the people who gave Lysithea her second Crest are apparently called — and see their work, their ‘machines’ working to save them time and energy. </p><p>It crosses her mind as they close in on Derdriu that some of the things described in these books could be very good for Fódlan, not just during the war but after. “There’ll be time for that later,” Edelgard says when she brings it up. “Right now, we just need to win.” Lysithea knows she’s not wrong. She imagines, but can’t be sure, that Edelgard isn’t just referring to the dark technology of the Agarthans there. That Lysithea isn’t just imagining Edelgard’s affection for her. </p><p>It takes until after the final victory at Fhirdiad for Hubert to reveal the final piece of the puzzle. He’s identified where the Agarthans hide beneath the Earth. </p><p>They fight back, of course, but the Black Eagle Strike Force was able to take down the Immaculate One; the Agarthans present no serious challenge. Lysithea knows where the weak points are for their metal soldiers, and how they must be controlled. After the battle is over, Lysithea finds a treasure trove of manuals, guidebooks, writings. She has lost herself in a drawer full of operating instructions for the city’s great metal warriors, but she is brought out of it by being tapped on the shoulder. </p><p>“Linhardt says he’s found something you should see,” Ferdinand says to her. She thanks him, and follows him over to what appears to be a medical facility. </p><p>Linhardt is already explaining to Hubert and Edelgard; upon seeing Lysithea approach (Ferdinand departing almost immdiately), he sighs and begins again. “I think there’s a way in here to fix the physical damage of the second Crest. You might lose the Crest; I can’t be certain. But you’ll also, if I’ve understood this correctly, have pretty much a normal Crest-bearing life.”</p><p>“When can you be sure how to do it, and that it’s safe?” Edelgard asks. </p><p>Linhardt looks back down at the paper. “Call it a few months. I don’t want to risk anything.”</p><p>Lysithea volunteers to go first. She won’t fight again, she doesn’t intend to have children, and there’s no reason to worry about her losing a Crest. And if something goes wrong, better her than Edelgard. </p><p>She wakes up once during the surgery. It’s painless, but Linhardt is snapping instructions at his assistants with more aggression than she’s seen in him before. It occurs to her, briefly, that this would not be a bad way to die. </p><p>She wakes up again, with Edelgard sitting next to her bed, apparently asleep, and is immediately sure she’s in Heaven. </p><p>When she tries to sit up, Edelgard’s eyes snap open. “Are you feeling all right?” Edelgard asks. “I can get Linhardt.”</p><p>Lysithea is actually feeling remarkably all right, given what Linhardt had described of the surgery. That is, she feels like she’s been trampled by a Demonic Beast. “I’m just a bit sore.” She pauses. It’s possible this question can’t be answered. “Did it work?”</p><p>“We think so,” Edelgard says. “What color was your hair originally?”</p><p>“Dark brown,” Lysithea says after a pause. She has to work to remember. It’s been so long. </p><p>“The roots are growing back in,” Edelgard tells her, reaching out to touch Lysithea’s hair. “We’re planning mine, once you’ve recovered.” </p><p>Lysithea hates this question, but she needs to know the answer. “What if you lose the Crest of Seiros? What will happen to, you know, the Imperial lineage?” </p><p>“It doesn’t matter, really,” Edelgard says. “I can’t carry on the Imperial lineage if I’m dead. And I was planning on adopting an heir.” She pauses. Her hand is still in Lysithea’s hair. “How do you feel about that?”</p><p>“Adopting an heir?” Lysithea has to think very carefully about this. There’s a lot of questions tied up in that one. She gives up after a few moments, and ask Edelgard the one she’s been thinking of ever since they captured the underground city. “For you, or for us?”</p><p>Edelgard smiles. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted an <i>us</i>. But if you do want that, yes, I meant we could adopt children. We could do whatever you want.” </p><p>“I’d like there to be an us,” Lysithea says.</p><p>Edelgard leans down to kiss Lysithea, and it is just as good as Lysithea always imagined.</p>
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